Belief
by citigirl13
Summary: Rory and Jess' relationship from Jess' POV. "He doesn't understand, and won't understand, that he can't get her out of his head. He can't, and he won't. It's one of the side-effects of unrequited love."


**This is the first GG story I've written. I have always loved Jess and Rory and I can't BELIEVE that they didn't end up together, or at least have it strongly hinted. Like most Jess/Rory fans, I believed Rory went to Philadelphia and met Jess and they got married/had kids/lived happily ever after. But I would still have liked something more than what happened at the end of GG. Jess should have come back and their relationship should have been hinted at. But this is what fanfiction is for... **

**Like I said, this is the first Gilmore Girls story I've written, so forgive me if the facts aren't entirely accurate. If I've written something that doesn't quite fit, just go with it, okay? Thanks! **

**Hope you enjoy it! **

**DISCLAIMER:**** I do NOT own **_**Gilmore Girls **_**or any of the characters**

* * *

**Belief**

* * *

When he thinks about her it is at the most random times. When he's focused he can block her out; he is able to watch a dark haired girl drink coffee and not see Rory reflected in her; he can read books with strong willed, insane female characters and not remember her hating them; he can drive his car without glancing at the passenger seat, half-hoping she's beside him.

But like everyone else in his life, she manages to sneak her way in.

(But unlike everyone else in his life, he stopped fighting it from day one)

He finds her spirit in Jane Eyre. He hears her arguing on the television constantly - she is the voice of a politician, a writer, the spunky heroine who doesn't know when to quit. He hates coffee, absolutely detests it - yet he keeps a bag of it in his apartment. He tells himself it's for other guests.

(He never gets it out, not even when a big-time publisher enters the place practically gasping for a strong cup of the stuff. It's all for her)

People in Stars Hollow always said it was Jess that dragged Rory down. They blamed him for breaking up the golden couple, for tempting her away only to rip her heart out. Put a republican, a witch and him in town square, and he's the one they'll burn without hesitation. They'd just run the republican out of town and hire the witch as their new doctor. No one ever considered how hard it was for him, how far he had fallen. From the moment he saw her turn round in her chair he was lost, he was Paris in the clutches of Helen. It was her hair, how dark it was yet not black - the closest he could come to explaining it was grey black. Technically you could never lighten the colour black, but her hair never followed the rules. Her eyes were the lightest blue, like the ocean had poured into her eyes so they had to take on that colour. But it was the way she was so innocent - her belief in the goodness of people and her sweetness, the way her anger would burst from her like a raging river, always taking him by surprise - that held him. He wanted to be with her, to understand how someone could believe that the world was fair.

(He wanted to see if she could get him to believe it too)

In the end she didn't let him down. Like the self-destructive asshole he is, he tore it down from the inside, burnt whatever they had so fast that there was no way for an escape. She burnt too.

(He'll never forgive himself for that)

* * *

He didn't intend to write a book. Or maybe that's just what he told himself. That little voice inside his own head, tearing at his confidence like a shredder at paper, would never let himself believe that he could actually write a novel. Novels were for great people, like Charles Dickens and Emily Bronte, Jane Austen and Ernest Hemmingway. Not for him, the boy that pushed his mother, his uncle, his girlfriend, as far away as he could. Not for him, the boy that didn't give a damn what anyone thought of him. Not for him, the boy that the world didn't have time to fit in.

It was one day, after working in some crappy hotel as a pot washer that he finally began to think that maybe the world could be fair after all. He was leaving through the front entrance (screw the manager; he'll walk wherever he wants to. This is America after all) and he overheard some guys having a discussion about the next great American novel. He couldn't help but chime in. He had expected the guys to react badly to his negative attitude, but they responded almost eagerly. When they realised he wasn't talking bullshit they grew animated, and before long they were inviting him to this open mic night to hear some authors read out their latest material. Fast-forward a year and they were working at the Truncheon. Working? They were running it.

The book business is everything he wanted and more. He gets to read as many books as he wants, and not only does he get to go on about how great one book is and how horrible another is, he is being paid to. But this place means more to him than just a pay cheque. He's helped build this place. These guys aren't his work colleagues, they're his friends - something that he's never actually had before. He can't shed his loner habits entirely, but he finds it easier than he should. He still can't force himself to live with someone, but thankfully he finds a small apartment right outside the park. It's a tiny little thing, sweltering in the summer and freezing when it's cold, and he slips on the hardwood floors, but he loves it. He gets a dark wooden desk with a comfy chair, and he can easily spend hours there, reading as the world ebbs and flows.

Life is almost perfect. If only he could get_ her_ out of his head.

(He doesn't understand, and won't understand, that he can't get her out of his head. He can't, and he won't. It's one of the side-effects of unrequited love)

He starts writing late one night. He fell asleep in his chair, exhausted by the book signing they held yet insistent on trying to read another chapter of this book. He dreams. He dreams of Stars Hollow, by the lake, late at night. Of her. How many times did they sneak out and meet there? It was their secret place; no one but Luke would ever think of looking there, and he only came for Jess once. The rest of time it was his place, his and Rory's.

When he wakes up he is shaking. Nothing happened in the dream; yet everything did. Even seconds after waking he could remember the shine of her white teeth, the peak of her laugh and the weight her hand rested easily on his knee. It felt so _real_. He's awake yet he can still feel her next to him, like a ghost.

(He can never _not _feel her presence)

His computer is still on. Almost nervously he taps the keys. Words pop up in the document. They are nonsense; these words don't even make sense. He types a little more. These ones do make sense, and once more he pauses. What is he doing? That little voice is back and more determined than ever. It knows that writing a novel is something he always dreamed, and it plans to squash that before he starts. He can't write a novel. What would he write about? He's just a punk, a no good kid that has somehow ended up exactly where he wanted to be. But that's not skill, it's only luck. He leans against the desk, his elbows resting on the end and his hands in his hair.

_"Don't say no just to make me stop talking or to make me go away - only say no if you really don't wanna be with me." _

_"No." _

Back straight, hands forward, eyes alight with the memories he can never forget. He types. He types like he can't remember anything else; he writes until the early sunlight begins to filter through the half-hung blinds; he continues until his phone rings asking where the hell he is. Only when he finishes does he realise that he's written sixteen pages. Maybe they're shit, maybe they're not - but he's done it.

(And really that's all that counts)

* * *

He understands why so many people write. When he's writing he forgets the pain, forgets his shit life and everything else that swirls round his head. When he writes it's all about her and he loves it. She is the words, the chapter headings, the little stutters and edits as he goes. He spends most nights falling asleep at his desk, so tired and yet so determined to get something written down. Writing is better than drugs for sending him to sleep, and for the first time in years he sleeps without dreams. He thought the trick was to try and forget about her. Forget and he would be fine. Forget and everything would go back to the way it used to be.

Remembering is painful.

But remembering helps him write.

He sets the novel in the 1920s, New York. His hero is a newcomer to the city, Drake Knox. Usually Jess would scoff at a name like that, but it comes out at his fingertips and he can't ignore it. The boy is a man, but the man is a boy and the character is a mess. His hair is constantly unclean and unkempt; he is surly and talks down to everyone; fighting is his favourite activity which he does at every opportunity. The boy who is meant to be a man is going nowhere, and fast.

But then, of course, he meets a girl.

She has short dark hair that is chopped into a bob. When Drake first sees her she is wearing a short green dress that shimmers in the light and when she walks. No one else seems to notice him but she does. She smiles and speaks only a few sentences to him – but her smile is sweet and her words are genuine and that's enough. Drake falls completely head over heels with her. His heart is crushed when he sees her walking out with another man.

Drake's life changes from then. He pulls himself together and gets a job as a newspaper columnist. He begins to make money. More than that, he begins to make a name for himself. He begins to gamble, a little at first, but he seems to have all the luck and continues to win. He gets money. He becomes _the_ man to date, and women - independent women who don't need their parents to find them husbands - throw themselves at him. But he doesn't bite. He can't get that girl out of his head and he continues to search for her.

He finds her again. They are at the horse races. She doesn't recognise him and he doesn't remind her. She knows that he's important right now, and as long as she's looking at him he doesn't care if she thinks she's meeting him for the first time. They talk and they flirt, and all the while his heart is hammering like a drum.

She's married. He doesn't care, and it turns out that she doesn't either. They have an affair behind her husband's back. It is torture, because it is almost what he wants yet not quite. She is terrified. If her husband finds out he'll kill her. Drake begs her to leave him, but she's too scared. People did wild things then, but no one left their husbands.

Only after a burning building, a fight and the crash in 1929 does she come to her senses. She finds him sitting by the river, in his own world. She says that she knows that times are uncertain, and that she's twice as scared as she was before, but she tells him she's ready. _"I know you couldn't count on me before, but you can now," _she says.

You never get to know her name. He doesn't reveal it, not in the two hundred and four pages of his masterpiece. But he knows her name throughout the novel. He didn't need to change it, or to even think about it.

(If you know him, you'll know her name)

* * *

When he sees her again it feels like he will faint at any moment. Or throw up, whichever. She looks different but at the same time she is that kid he met in Stars Hollow. She stands next to a gorgeous car, in front of a huge house, and he can still see her in scuffed shoes and torn jeans.

It only takes them five minutes to get into a conversation. It's awkward but when he tells her he wrote a short story she goes mad. Her grin grows off her face and she talks, not to fill the silence but because she's happy. "I knew it," she says in triumph. He realises then that even when he didn't believe in himself, she did.

(She always has)

Their next meeting is far from pleasant. She is with a jerk that has enough money so that if he doesn't know how to tie her shoelaces, he could hire someone else to. The dinner is as uncomfortable as a STI test and soon enough he's bolting.

(It's something he has always known how to do)

She comes after him this time.

(It's something she's never done)

She defends her boyfriend. Maybe that's what makes him so mad. All of a sudden he's asking her what the hell happened to her. Why did she drop out of Yale? Why is she living with her grandparents? Why is she dating Logan? He doesn't ask, but he also wants to know why she and her mother aren't speaking. Where is Lorelai Gilmore in this? As much as Jess hated her sometimes, the Rory he knew would never stop talking to her mother. Joined at the hip, those two. It must have been big to drive those two apart.

In true Jess fashion, he blows up at her and then wishes her a belated happy birthday before turning around and walking away. Again.

(He doesn't know he can't ever walk away from her)

* * *

The next time he sees her she is happier. Her eyes are lit up with something that he can't identify, but he doesn't care because she's _here_. His worlds collide. Before, that would have panicked him. Now he rolls with it.

By the end it's just him and her in one room, and he almost can't believe his luck. She has come to him this time. Something has changed in her. For the first time since they broke up she is open with him. He bends down and suddenly he is hit by her scent - perfume mixed with the strong smell of coffee - and he can't hold back anymore.

Thankfully neither can she.

Their kiss is like going back in time. Except he can't remember the pain or loneliness he had back then. All he can think about is sitting on the sofa in Luke's, listening her complain about music, watching as she was dragged into another town event or another of Paris' schemes. He remembers the warmth of coffee and the sharpness of the first snow. He remembers feeling secure for the first time in his young life.

When he kisses her, he's flying.

When she breaks away, he's falling.

She can't cheat on him, not like he cheated on her. That's what she tells him. Once again he can feel the fury hit him - now he understands. He knows why she turned up here. To get revenge. And who better to help her then him? He hates Logan and he loves her - it's the perfect combination. Except he wants her to love him. He won't take second prize kisses, not when he knows what a _real _kiss from her feels like.

She goes to the door. He tells her that he can tell him that they did something, if she wants. Because they should have done something, be something, even if it's only in a lie.

It feels like the thousandth time he has seen her leave. All he wants to do is grab her and never let her go again. It hurts somewhere deep in his chest and a stomach, a pain that feels as if it's making itself at home. He knows he'll always feel it.

As soon as he hears the sound of a car disappear, he moves away. He goes into the back room and finds Marion. She started a few weeks ago, helping shelve the books and advertise. According to the guys she has a crush on him. As if he needed telling. She was always battering her eyes at him and complimenting him on his clothes. She has made it quite clear that all he has to do is whistle and she'll come.

He's never whistled. He's never wanted to.

Now he whistles.

(Because he needs to, not because he wants to)

They do it right there, on the desk. She groans and makes kitten noises, but he doesn't make a sound. It's uncomfortable and rough, but not in a good way. But he doesn't know how sex should go. He was waiting.

(For her. But that doesn't really need saying)

* * *

By the time he gets home, his head is pounding. He feels sore – should he feel sore? Sex definitely didn't feel how it should have done. In his head it was meant to be epic. It was meant to be slow, it was meant to be gentle. It was meant to feel _right_.

He sits at his desk and turns on the laptop. He needs to write. He is in so much pain right now, not really physically but mentally. She has torn his heart out again, but this time he's not sure he can get it back. If he's going to get it back he needs to write it in. Write in the heart, and write her out. Somewhere deep inside himself he believed that she would come back to him. He was wrong, and now he needs to let her go. He's going to let her go.

(What he doesn't know is that he can never let her go. He never will)

This is the end.

(It's not the end)

* * *

**Hours to make. Seconds to review. **

**All reviews are appreciated! **


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